Princess and the pea story with pictures

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. Something is always wrong with those he meets and he cannot be certain they are real princesses because they have bad table manners or they are not his type.

The Princess and the Pea was written by Hans Christian Andersen, who published it in 1835. Unlike the Little Mermaid, which is an original fairy tale by Andersen, The Princess and the Pea was based on traditional folk tales Andersen heard as a child.

But she said nothing, went into the bedroom, took off all the bedding and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty featherbeds of eiderdown on top of the mattresses. That was where the princess was to sleep for the night.

The prince and the princess duly get married, the pea is put on display in a museum, and that's the end of this strange little tale.